Torgesen Family Times

{We are trying to enjoy and record the moments that make life special}

Tonight after getting out of the hot tub Alex asks me “Mom – can you give me mole-hill hair?” (aka a Mohawk).

“You mean the kind that sticks up on top?” I asked. “Yeah Mommy, like this” he says.

“Can Mommy take a picture to show Daddy when he gets home?”

Love my mole-hill haired boy! I love almost 4 year old conversations!

P.S. In case it’s just me in my sleep deprived stupor…

“Mole-hill” hair sounds a lot like “Mo-Hawk” hair and Lance has been saying a lot about Mole-hills lately since we have a ton! Mole-hill THIS an THAT Mole-hill – except replace THIS and THAT with other adult words…

I look back at my baby girl after going to the kitchen to get something – and this is what I find.

My baby girl is pulling up to stand now. My baby girl is growing up so fast! We installed the baby gate this weekend too – she just loves climbing stairs and has NO idea how dangerous that is (yet, although all kids fall down the stairs at some point, right?). We have a truly mobile girl now – and it’s time to get serious about some safety items around the house.

This is (apparently) THE way to drink milk in a big boy cup. I’m telling … it’s THE latest and greatest!

Alex has been helping Sara learn how to eat and it’s so cute. He asks her to watch him and puts a spoon in his mouth and says things like “See baby, this is how you chew your food” in the high pitched voice that I (apparently) use. He wanted to help feed her and I caught this sweet moment.

We had our first 2 kid bath this past week – Oh what fun! We played with letters, cups and sharks (apparently). And had a blast!

Lately, there seems to be some confusion regarding the Meal Policy at Torgesen’s Bed & Breakfast.
For your clarification, we have reprinted it below.
You will note that there is a new section on 'Snacks'. This was added after careful consideration and zero consultation.
All changes are effective immediately.

Meal Policy

There will be one common dinner provided for all lodgers each night.

You will eat it.

We do not care if you do not like tomatoes.

If you finish everything on your plate, you will get dessert.

If, after tasting the dinner you cannot choke it down, you may (a) make yourself some toast or (b) try your luck at the neighbor's; either way, dessert is off the cards.

There will be no food or drink (other than water) issued once you have brushed your teeth; therefore, we would recommend eating a second serve - tomatoes or no tomatoes - at dinner time.

It just happened to be (already) planned on a day that school was closed due to the snow – so good all around! Lance and Alex used the rope tow with Lance holding Alex and holding the rope tow to pull them up the small hill. Then he pointed Alex’s skis down the hill and held him and let him go. He said it took a couple of times to get the hang of it, and to not lean back too much, but he got it and loved it!

At about 2pm, I got a call at work saying they were having a blast and were still going strong (I was betting they would be done in about 45 minutes after being up there).

They stopped in Sultan to get a burger on the way home and relaxed their sore muscles in the hot tub.

After a weekend of wrestling, kids, grandparents, not sleeping as much as we should, birthday party, wiggle worms, grocery shopping, laundry, all all the rest – we are tired. Lance is tired, I am tired.

T.I.R.E.D.

Sara is sleeping horribly lately. Like, flopping her self around and moaning and groaning, and generally being a fantastic sleep-disturber. I thought it might be an ear infection, but no (after waiting about almost 2 hours at the doctors this weekend), it’s not. It’s probably teething, or developmental (she is crawling and now up stairs, too), or lack of me teaching her to sleep by herself by now, or whatever.

I am so tired, I am beat! I wake up (I mean “wake up” by meaning that I don’t want to get up, but Lance has already had both kids downstairs for 2 hours) in the morning and feel physically sick to my stomach I am so tired. I remember this feeling when Alex was going through all his ear infections, how extremely tired you can get. I’m going to bed early tonight. Early.

The even tougher part is that Lance is beat too. Alex isn’t sleeping well either and so we’re both having to get up multiple times a night to get our children back to sleep.

Lance pointed this out to me the other day with an email in my inbox saying “you gotta look at this – click on the link below”. He was reading the most current post and clicked on the articles suggested below each post from Linkwithin.

9 things Alex was doing at 9 months old – WAY back in 2007! It has been so fun to see the similarities and the differences between the kids. Sometimes they are so similar, sometimes SO different.

Sara 9 mo developments

1) Crawling! After much anticipation – she is crawling everywhere. And when she gets too tired, she just pulls herself places. Although she is very happy, most of the time, to sit and and play with a toy.

2) Crawling up one step already! Two steps is right behind… Batten down the hatches – we have a crawling baby in the house!

3) 4 teeth with 2 more coming in. Her smile is infectious with those 4 chompers!

4) Not sleeping well. Sometimes we’re up every 2 hours. Boo!

5) Stranger anxiety is in full force. Mama, Daddy and Nanny Melanie are who she is most comfortable with. Other people can hold her, they will just hold a crying baby. We are holding her and snuggling her as much as possible, when she’s walking and exploring, the snuggle time significantly decreases. We know.

6) Eating lots of foods, but still prefers mushed up foods. She’s learning to take very soft foods cut up, like small cut up canned pears. Bananas are still her FAVORITE. Tonight she ate black eyed peas, ham and greens ground up, mixed with a little cheese sauce, watered down a bit and warmed up. YUM!

7) Chewing on everything! Those darn teeth! It’s easy to forget teething the second time around.

8) She loves Mama’s milk and my supply is fine this time around. We supplement with formula, but we are doing just fine.

9) She LOVES her jumperoo. If she doesn’t jump at least a couple of times a day, she’s a cranky girl.

No babies were harmed in the capturing of this moment. She just wanted to feel the snow so bad! And it was SO cute!

For contrast:

Alex 9 mo developments

1) standing!!! (I know - he probably will be walking by 10 months! He just wants.to.move.all.the.time.) 2) cruising along while holding on to furniture 3) 4 teeth! The two top teeth are coming in and they are SOOO cute! 4) not sleeping very well - a GREAT night is still waking 3 times a night. Most nights are uncountable (6-10?) We are having a rough time with this one because it seems like he has to sleep ON us. (and wake up every 45 min?) I've told Lance this is a phase but it's often hard to see that when you're in it. 5) very clingy towards the Mama 6) walking with assistance from a walking toy - very roughly 7) opening cabinets and drawers in the kitchen and making noises by banging them 8) Eating like a horse - he likes "big person" food now - no baby food. He really likes chili, spaghetti sauce and anything that we're eating. 9) this one is for Mama - since I'm losing my milk, so therefore we're feeding him more and more of formula. Good thing it's only until he's one year old. It's expensive! We're blowing through it and just bought 4 cans from Costco.

Alex really GOT Christmas this year. He was SO excited. He wanted to open the biggest present first, a train set from Papa T and Grandma Connie. What a fantastic train set with multiple trains and remote controllers! Then, quickly on to open more presents. His attention span was about the length of opening a present, seeing what it was and then on to the next until they were all done.

In true Sara fashion – she was happy doing what ever. So mellow. She hung out in the pink box that the train set came in for a long time and enjoyed sitting and watching her big brother.

Now, when you asked Alex what he was going to ask for from Santa this year – you got one answer and one answer only. A skateboard. Oh, holy moly. What’s a good parent to do? So, Santa brought him a skate board and he wanted to try it out, but we did have to wait for daylight outside Christmas day. Thank goodness Santa also brought knee pads, elbow pads and wrist guards. Alex has found a new cartoon that he likes called Kick Buttowski. It’s about this kid who is a daredevil, just like Alex, and rides a skateboard. Alex wants to be Kick Buttowski and thought that skateboarding would be easy – Kick Buttowski does it so easily. Well, Alex found out it will take some practice. No broken anything yet. Thank goodness!

Christmas day was spent with Lance’s side of the family with us going down to the beach at Grandma Judy’s house. Great Grandma Myrtle gave these antlers and red nose to Alex and he loved them! He was Rudolf most of the afternoon.

We headed to the beach for a bit, it was really nice. Not cold, not windy at all, the water was like glass. Sara did get to show off her hat that I knit her for Christmas though. A little bit big – hopefully it fits better next winter too.

We had about 3-4 inches of snow after Christmas and it’s still sticking around! And, in true Torgesen fashion – Lance and Alex built a big tall snowman, with eyes, nose, smile and arms.

We made cookies for Santa with lots of sprinkles (with Batman no less!). And even made Alex and Sara cookies! Santa scarfed them up, by the way. Also, we put out some reindeer food and Rudolf must have been very hungry.

Christmas eve was spent with my side of the family. Aunt Amelia was here, my Dad, my Mom and Steve – the whole gang! And the hit of the night was a hand-made (by Papa Steve) marble run. Oh what fun! Alex LOVES it, but doesn’t quite get how to set it up with all the holes aligned, he needs some help. Sara was so intrigued by the balloons that Aunt Amelia brought and sitting on Papa Dave’s lap was pretty nice too.

Sara got her top two teeth, plus two more right next to them are coming in too. Oh the joy of teething. How quickly you forget!

Sara is OFFICALLY crawling – she can crawl a few steps before she just plops down and drags herself where she wants to go. She is so happy with herself. She’s already working on how to get up those one steps from our living room into our kitchen. She can get her front half up, but has no idea about the back end yet.

Pacific Science Center

Seattle Aquarium

Museum of Flight

What do these 3 things have in common?

We visited them all this Christmas break and had a fantastic time. Alex had so much fun bringing his new lunch bag. We packed a lunch each day and right when we go to the museum, at like 10:00 AM, he would want to each lunch because he was so excited about using his new lunch bag.

The most crowded was the Science center, and alas, Alex didn’t want to go into the butterfly house. But, we did get to see dinosaurs, funny mirrors, make music and tons of other things.

The Aquarium was really fun, Grandma Sandy joined us and we all had a good time. They had high school volunteers doing all sorts of activities for the kids. We got to touch starfish and sea cucumbers, see the seals and otters, see more funny mirrors and it was a nice day to be in downtown Seattle.

The Flight museum was the least crowded and I wondered why? It was so much fun! There were tons of planes, space/astronaut stuff to look at, really nice volunteer docents who loved talking to little kids, and you could even walk aboard the air force one and the concord. It was a fun trip.